0. Judges need to be told that more than anything else – they should do their best to be fair and unbiased towards all contestants.

1. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: At Area+ (area or higher) contest, all judges become ineligible to compete in this type contest at this or any higher level this ‘season’ i.e.:
“If you agree to be a cheif judge, voting or tie breaking judge in this Area+ (area or higher) contest, YOU MAY NOT COMPETE after this in this contest type in this contest typoe season.”

2. ELIGIBILITY: All judges must be members in good standing (implied: of a club in good standing). For Area+ (area or or higher) International speech contests only: Judges must have completed a minimum of 6 speeches from the CC manual and been a Toastmaster member in good standing for the past 6 months.

3. Apart from the Chief Judge, judges do not need to concern themselves with timing of any contestant or whether the contestant was over or under time. they can ignore time completely and just judge the effectiveness of the speech/topic/evaluation ….

4. Judges do not need to concern themselves with deciding on a speaking area. Judges are free to penalize, enhance or do nothing to the score of any contestant who goes beyond the announced speaking are.

5. Judges are free to ignore the score guide and use any criteria they want. No one will see or check your scoring. This is important and part of the rules since using the guide is NOT required and is open to interpretation anyway. Note: The contestants expect the judges to use the suggested point values and criteria and TI recommends that strongly!

6. Judges need to tell the Chief Judge if they believe a prepared speech is not original ( greater than 25 % not original = speech not original)

7. Judges need to be told to destroy their scoring materials and to not discuss their decision with anyone. Note: after the contest, the chief judge will destroy all ballots, the timing record, and the tally sheet.

8. Judges need to know that they need to break their own “tie” and write down the name of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd best speakers and sign their ballot.

9. Apart from being fair and unbiased, judges should identify themselves as to what club they are a member of in case they are not permitted to judge a particular contest because of the club affiliation of any contestant – which should be determined by the Chief Judge anyway (cat Division+ no judge may be from same club a contestant represents.)

10. Judges should vote for who they thought presented the best speech/who was just the best speaker during the contest (using whatever fair and unbiased criteria they apply). Use of the recommended scoring guide is STRONGLY recommended, but its use is not enforced or audited.

11 Any other “training” and discussion of what the contest scoring guide means category by category is subjective and – in my experience – means slightly different things to different people. There is NO right answer. so it cannot be trained into judges. Maybe that sentence needs to be part of judges training.